How To Deal With Worry

Welcome back for the second part of Max Lucado’s message titled “Anxious For Nothing.” Anxiety is at an all time high among Americans. You may be dealing with it for the first time or finding that a problem you’ve struggled with your whole life is now much worse. There’s good news…God doesn’t want you to live with debilitating anxiety! Read on for a step by step plan for overcoming worry.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Philippians 4.4-8 NIV

In Philippians 4.4-8, Paul lists four helpful ideas for winning the war on worry. I think they make a nice acrostic that spells out the word CALM. If you want to move from chaos into calm, the Apostle Paul says:

1. Celebrate God’s goodness

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!”

Philippians 4.4 NKJV

Paul, always the preacher, knows to repeat what he wants to say. “Rejoice in the Lord always…you weren’t listening, Lucado! Again I say, rejoice!” and then he sticks an exclamation point on the end of it, as if to say “Come on!” 

“Rejoice in the Lord always” the apostle writes with chains dangling, from that Roman jail cell. 

“Rejoice in the Lord always” he writes, with no penny in his pocket and perhaps the footsteps of the executioner echoing in the hallway. 

“Rejoice in the Lord always” he writes beneath the shadow of Nero and the threat to the church. He says “let’s just rejoice in the Lord always.” His point is: don’t meditate on the mess. 

The more you stare at the problem, the bigger it gets. 

When you have a problem, lift up your eyes and rejoice in the Lord. The minute the anxiety comes, rather than giving in to it, you lift up your eyes and you rejoice in the Lord. This was the counsel of the psalmist: 

“I will lift up my eyes to the hills- from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

Psalm 121.1-2 NKJV

Do you see the intentionality in those words? “I will lift up my eyes…” This was a decision the psalmist made. The Apostle Peter is a testimony to this. Do you remember how the storm struck the Sea of Galilee, he knew what 10 foot waves could do to a fishing boat. Maybe that’s why he volunteered to walk on the water when he saw Jesus walking on the water. 

“Peter cried out, ‘Lord if it is really you, then command me to come to you on the water.’ Jesus said, ‘Come.’ And Peter left the boat and walked on the water to Jesus. But when Peter saw the wind and the waves, he became afraid and began to sink. He shouted, ‘Lord, save me!’”

Matthew 14.28-30 NKJV

“But when Peter saw the wind and the waves, he began to”…what? Sink. As long as he kept his eyes on Christ, he was able to do the impossible; but when he saw the wind and the waves- when he turned his gaze away from Christ- he began to sink. If today you feel like you’re sinking, or the next time you feel like you’re sinking, lift up your eyes. Set your gaze on Christ. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in His sovereignty. 

Is God greater than your problem? 
Has God ever faced this problem before? 
Does God have solutions you’ve not thought of? 
Has God got you through these types of things before? 
Does God have a good track record? 
Is God strong? 
Is God sovereign?
Is God still on the throne?
Is He over all? 

See how you lift that up? You’re rejoicing in the Lord! You’re lifting your mind away from the problems and you’re setting your mind on the One who can solve it. Do not meditate on the mess. 

I have a childhood memory I’m fond of, when my Dad had everybody in the house in bed, I was probably 8 or 9 or 10 years of age. I had an older brother, when he had us in bed, when he had his wife in bed, he’d make the rounds around the house and he’d stop in the kitchen and get a cup of buttermilk, and he’s crumble up some cornbread in it, can you guess I was raised in a small West Texas town? He was always wearing his t-shirt and his boxer shorts. Then he’d make the rounds and he’d make sure all the doors were locked, which took about 2 minutes because there were only 3 doors- front door, back door and the door to the garage. Then, as if he were the commander of a great vessel, he would bellow out- probably loud enough for the neighbors to hear- 

“EVERYTHING IS LOCKED UP! YOU CAN GO TO SLEEP NOW! IT’S SAFE!”

And you know, I believed him. You might say I rejoiced in my father’s strength. Because he spoke, I could calm down and I could go to sleep. I have no inclination to think that God loves buttermilk and cornbread, but everything in my spirit says He wants you to hear what my father would say to us: and that is “I’m in charge of this house. You’re not. I’ve checked the entrances and the exits and I determine who enters and who leaves. You can rest now.” So you rejoice. That’s what it means to rejoice in the Lord. “I’ve got a great God! I’ve got a wonderful Father! I rejoice in the Lord!” Then the Apostle says having done that, you’ll be ready:

2. Ask God for help. 

You’ve calmed yourself down, now you ask God for help.

“let your requests be made known to God”

Philippians 4.6 NIV

You see, fear triggers either despair or prayer, so choose wisely. God said “call on me in the day of trouble.” Psalm 50.15 NIV. Jesus said “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7.7 NKJV 

The path to peace is always paved with prayer. 

That’s why the devil doesn’t want you to pray. The Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, said “put the Lord in remembrance (of His promises), keep not silence” Isaiah 62.6 AMPC. God told Isaiah, “Put Me in remembrance; let us contend together” Isaiah 43.26 NKJV. That is to say, go ahead and remind the Lord of what He said He will do; not that He needs the reminder, but we need the reminder. We are agreeing with God which stands in defiance of the devil and any demons who might be lurking around. You’re standing, not on the pain in life, or the problems of life, but you’re standing on the promise of life. 

Lord, You said You’d walk me through the valley.

Lord, You said You would never leave me or forsake me.

Lord, You said You would walk me through the waters- see you find a promise that fits your problem and you make a prayer out of it. These prayers touch the heart of God and activate the angels in Heaven. Your prayer might not be answered overnight, but it will come with an answered prayer, and you will overcome. Having done so, you can then do this:

3. Leave your concerns with God.

Have you ever taken anything to an appliance store- how about a computer to be fixed? Have you ever done that? Have you ever taken a car in to be fixed? So you know what it’s like when you take something to be repaired. When you take something to be repaired, you take a sleeping bag with you, do you not? You roll it out on the floor and you tell the repairman, “I’m just going to lie here until you get it fixed, in case you need my help.” That’s not how it works, is it? You take it to the repairman and you leave it with him. When you offer a request to God, do you tell God, “now God, I’m just going to stay around until You get it fixed, if you need my advice. I’m going to be putting You on the clock; I’m going to check in with You.” No. You leave your concern with your Heavenly Father. 

“let your requests be made known to God”

Philippians 4.6 NIV

The word “request” there is a word that can be translated as “itemized request.” These are specific concerns you have. The more specific you can get, the better. So you wake up in the morning and you think oh, I’ve got that interview with that person at 2:30 this afternoon… I always get tied up into knots thinking about how difficult that’s going to be…but today instead of giving in to the anxiety, I’m going to offer a specific prayer based on a specific promise. 

“Heavenly Father, please at 2:30 this afternoon, go ahead of me. Go into the room- be preparing it, clean it out, change the atmosphere. Be softening his heart, be giving me wisdom. Grant that I can know exactly what to say before I get there.”

Be specific with it. “Give us this day our daily bread,” Jesus taught us to pray. Give us today what we need. And then between early in the morning and 2:30, when you feel that anxiety coming, you can say “oh, no. I left that at the repair shop. I left that with the Heavenly Father. He’s working on that. He has gone ahead of me. I trust Him,” instead of giving in to the anxiety. Then you can rejoice! You say “oh good! I’m going to rejoice in the Lord, because I know He’s going to keep that promise because He’s a faithful father. I’m going to leave that with Him.” Instead of giving in to that tailspin, that quicksand of anxiety, you lift up your eyes and you rejoice in the Lord. By the time it’s time to go into that meeting, you’re a better person. You’re going in armed with faith, and consequently, where that anxiety has gone, you can now place gratitude. Look what the Apostle says:

“But in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving…”

Philippians 4.6

Thanksgiving. Anxiety and gratitude cannot share the same heart. Test me on this. If someone comes to see me as a pastor about anxiety, I say “let’s just make a list of 10 good things in your life.” Sometimes I have to talk them into it, because they’ve gotten hooked on their anxiety. It can be addicting. But if we can get them out of that mindset and say “let’s just think of 10 good things in your life…” as they begin making the list, you actually begin to see life returning to their face. Test me on that. Try it sometime. The next time you’re anxious, begin to make the list of things for which you’re grateful for. Because anxiety and gratitude refuse to share the same heart.

I have a friend named Jerry, who’s a retired dentist. He’s 78 years old and he regularly beats me on the golf course. He often shoots his age; if I do the same, I’ll need to live to be 100! He’s the most joyful, happy man. You’d never know that his life has been marred by crisis. Over the last 18 years, his wife has battled Parkinson’s Disease. What they thought would be a wonderful season of retirement and travel has been populated by multiple trips to the hospital and managing medication. It’s not what they had hoped it would be. One day I asked him, “Jerry, how do you stay so peaceful, so happy?” He said, “Well, every morning when Ginger and I wake up, she says ‘can we sing a hymn?’ I say ‘what do you want to sing?’ and she always says ‘Can we sing ‘Count Your Many Blessings’? Name them one by one.’ And so we do.” And they have learned the importance of dealing with anxiety through the power of gratitude. You leave your concerns with Him. You fill your heart with gratitude. And then, lastly, you:

4. Meditate on good things.

The Apostle gives us a long list here: he says 

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things.”

Philippians 4.8 NKJV

Don’t let anxious negative thoughts take over your mind. You cannot control your circumstances, but you can control how you think about them. One of the most difficult days of my life found me in Dalton, Georgia. I was 19 years old. I had spent the night before in the Salvation Army. The inebriated fellow in the bunk above mine had rolled over in the middle of the night and puked. If loneliness was water, I was soaked to the bone. On the promise of fast cash and new sights, I had signed on to sell books, door to door and got shipped out to Georgia from Texas. My two good friends who had signed up with me, they quit the first day, so I was all by myself. I learned something- I learned that people don’t like door to door salesmen… even nice ones like me. I would knock on the first door, “Hello, I’m Max-” SLAM! “Hello, I’m Max-” SLAM! “Hello, I’m Max-” SLAM! The next day wasn’t any better. Noon on the second day, I pulled into a diner, nursed my bruised ego, and ate a hamburger. As I was paying for the burger, next to the cash register, there was a display of magnetized rubberized truisms- little quotes, slogans that you could purchase and affix to a refrigerator or something. One of them was shaped like a lemon and on it were the words (you know what I’m going to say) “If life gives you a lemon, make lemonade.” It was folksy, it was homespun, it was overused, it was corny- but I had never heard it before! And it was exactly what I needed. So I purchased that little rubberized magnetized truism, yellow and shaped like a lemon “If life gives you a lemon, make lemonade” and I affixed it to the metal strip on the dash of my 1973 Duster. I can’t tell you how many times over the summer I would rub my thumb over that little quote. I made it through the summer. People still slammed doors and life gave me a lemon, but I discovered the idea of trying to make lemonade out of the lemons of life. That’s been 40 years ago…well, not quite. Heading toward it…and you know what I’ve learned? Life still gives lemons…and the lemons I was facing that day back in Georgia was nothing compared to the lemons some of you are facing today. I spoke to a lady this week, a single mom, she genuinely wonders if she’ll ever have a good night’s sleep again. I spoke to a fellow, 70 years old, and is going through a divorce, of all things. Spoke to a lady whose husband battles dementia. He was a pilot for the Air Force, but now he can no longer drive a car. She was going to have to go take his keys away from him. Life still gives lemons. Life gives lemons to young people, to old people, to rich people, to poor people, to good people, to bad people. 

Life comes with lemons, but you don’t have to suck on them. 

Anxiety happens as we suck on lemons. The Apostle says “meditate on good things.” Some years ago, I wrote this in a journal. I read it quite often. “Today I will live today. Yesterday has passed; tomorrow is not yet. I’m left with today. So today I will live today. Relive yesterday? No…I will learn from it. I will seek mercy for it. I will take joy in it, but I won’t live in it. The sun has set on yesterday. The sun has yet to rise on tomorrow. Worry about the future? To what gain? It deserves a glance and nothing more. I can’t change tomorrow until tomorrow. Today I will live today. I will face today’s challenges with today’s strength. I will dance today’s waltz with today’s music. I will celebrate today’s opportunities with today’s hope. Today. May I laugh, listen, learn, and love. And if tomorrow comes, may I do it again.” The next time anxiety awakes you at 2:30 in the morning, would you believe what I’m suggesting to you? That it is not God’s will that you live a life of perpetual anxiety. That your Heavenly Father will help you. He will help you pull out the roots of your anxiety. He will help you deal with the fears that face you. He loves you. What my father said to us in our small West Texas home, our Heavenly Father says to you.

 “Everything is safe now. You can rest.”

Thank you for joining us for this powerful message from Max Lucado. We hope you were blessed by this timely teaching. We would love to pray with you about whatever you’re facing. Go to the “Prayer” tab at the top of the website to share your requests with us.